Captain Sybok
by Lucillia
Summary: Thanks to a rather gaudy brochure rack, the life of Spock's older half brother takes a different course, and both of Sarek's sons end up in Starfleet.
1. Departure From Vulcan

In ninety-nine universes out of a hundred, Sybok would have passed by the display without even turning to look at it as he headed through the spacedock above Vulcan on his way to the stars. In virtually all of the few universes where he did pause to look, he would quickly turn away and continue towards his destination without a backward glance. This time however, he moved towards it, slightly alarming the guards who followed him to ensure he left the system never to return...

The display - undoubtedly meant for the sizable number of humans who passed through Vulcan's largest interstellar transportation hub daily - flashed brightly in the neutrally colored departure lounge in a manner that humans and several other species around the galaxy would find eye-catching. It had been eye-catching to Sybok and several other Vulcans who had previously requested its removal for all the wrong reasons however. Rather than being attractive as its designers had intended, it had been a minor annoyance at the edges of his peripheral vision.

It had almost been with a sense of amusement that he had picked up one of the brightly colored brochures. The object, with its primary colors and flickering images of smiling, happy people from a number of races practically begged anyone that looked at it to consider a career in Starfleet. For a moment, Sybok paused, and he considered. Having been thrown out of his father's home and banished from his homeworld for all eternity because he had almost violently disagreed with the Status Quo, it wasn't really as if he had anywhere else to go.

He had planned on starting his search for Sha Ka Ree right away, but the flight he'd booked himself aboard had eaten up most of his meagre supply of credits, and it was uncertain when or how he would get more. While he had chosen to follow the path of emotion, he hadn't rejected logic. He believed logic should be tempered with emotion as it had been in ancient times. Logic dictated that if he wanted to reach Sha Ka Ree, which he believed to be within the barrier in the center of the galaxy any time in the near future, he should acquire either a large amount of credits at once or obtain a steady income. He had little prospects of obtaining a large amount of credits at once without commiting a crime of some sort, but he would be able to acquire a steady income quite easily. Obtaining a steady income that would allow him to travel through space would only be a little more difficult. Starfleet appeared to coincide with his goals quite nicely.

There was still a while until the ship he booked aboard departed, meaning that there was still time to change his travel arrangements. Swiftly making up his mind, he turned to the nearest computer terminal and booked himself aboard a small vessel that was headed for Earth in two hours. He knew little about the planet that had been home to his father's second wife, but for his current purposes, he knew enough. Should he fail to get into Starfleet, Earth was the center of the Federation, making it a travel destination and center of business for a large part of the galaxy. Going to Earth would be a logical choice whether or not he went into Starfleet, and he could admit to a great deal of curiosity about the world his half-brother Spock's mother came from.

Yes, he would go to Earth, and he would use the ten days the journey would take to fill out the application for Starfleet which had come with the brochure.


	2. Arrival on Earth

It had taken a good portion of Sybok's trip to Earth to fill out the basic application that he had downloaded from the brochure which had requested pages upon pages of personal information from his medical history to what he liked to do in his free time, and included a number of preliminary aptitude tests which had to be performed in front of a witness. Fortunately for him, one of the members of the ship's crew who had initially been incredulous over his career choice had kindly agreed to be said witness.

Shortly before the ship was due to arrive on Earth, the application had been sent to the Starfleet Academy, and confirmation of its receipt had been received. He was scheduled to meet with a representative of the Academy two days after his arrival.

After two days in which boredom set in since he had nothing worthwhile to do as the application had already been sent and the human passengers had appeared uncomfortable when he'd attempted to join in on their leisure activities, the ship had finally arrived at Earth. After what felt like an interminable wait, he debarked with his fellow passengers, and boarded a shuttle which took them to Customs in the portion of San Francisco which had originally been the city of Pleasant Hill if his brief studies on the history of the city which had expanded over the centuries until it had reached the former state capitol of Sacramento had been correct.

He hadn't known what to expect when he'd finally left Customs and made his way out into the city to find temporary lodgings. He'd heard that the sky of Earth was blue, but that apparently was not the case, as when he looked up upon setting foot out of the front door of the sprawling complex, he had found it to be a rather ominous shade of gray. As he stood there wondering about the physiological differences between his species and that native to this planet that had the humans perceiving this shade of gray to be blue, and pondering over the mystery of the outside being colder than the indoors during daylight hours he felt what felt like a drop of water hit his nose.

As he stood there contemplating this development, he was hit by several more drops of water. He'd heard that the Humans had a propensity for pulling what they called practical jokes. Was this one of them?

As Sybok was getting his first experience of rain, his father was sitting in his office contemplating the message he'd just sent concerning said Vulcan. He'd washed his hands of his eldest two weeks before when the young man had attempted to steal his mother's Katra for some reason which somehow involved Sha Ka Ree and a divine creator. Sybok was now no longer welcome on Vulcan, and any offspring he may have would have to go through a thorough vetting process before they would be allowed to so much as set one toe on the soil of that world.

As the reasons for Sybok's exile were meant to be kept private, he could not divulge them to Starfleet who had come asking him questions since his son had applied to their academy for some strange reason. It was with some serious misgivings that he had sent a message to the Commandant of the academy telling him that there weren't any outstanding problems with his offspring. From the eager look on the woman's face at the prospect of having a Vulcan recruit, he had a feeling that she wouldn't question him further about the boy who was as good as enlisted as far as the higher-ups were concerned.

He would not be telling Spock who had idolized his older brother far too much or his wife who would end up letting something slip anything about where Sybok had gone. As far as they would be concerned, he had hared off for parts unknown, and was most definitely not further shaming the family and ruining their reputation by enlisting in an organization that could be considered military considering the fact that the ships they flew were armed, and the recruits were trained in the use of weapons for purposes that weren't strictly ceremonial.


	3. Starting at the Academy

By the time Sybok reached his temporary lodgings which were located in the Concord neighborhood of San Francisco at the edges of Clayton Heights, he was both soaked to the bone and suffering from the beginning stages of hypothermia.

He personally blamed the map. For some strange reason, human maps were rather deceptively scaled to make things appear to be closer than they actually were, and the map he'd picked up at the information kiosk as he'd been arranging for a room had been no exception.

What he'd thought had been a pair of side streets had actually been a pair of what had previously been main roads when the neighborhoods he'd walked through had been cities in their own right, and to make matters worse, the entire hike that had started out as a stroll had been done under what he was convinced was a torrential downpour. Hearing of rain and actually experiencing it were two entirely different things, and that had been why he hadn't recognized what was going on and that it wouldn't actually stop as soon as he got out of the range of whatever human was causing it because no human was causing it.

Fortunately for the sake of what little sanity he'd had left, the rest of his stay on Earth hadn't been quite as unpleasant as his introduction to the planet. Soon after being given the access code to his room, he was introduced to the odd human luxury of a hot bath which - aside from being an exceedingly extravagant waste of water - had not been entirely unpleasant despite the fact that the sensation of being submerged was completely alien to him. Two days later, the administrators at the Starfleet Academy had been all smiles when they had confirmed his admission during the upcoming academic year. After leaving with several informational packets as well as orders to visit a fleet doctor for a full physical, he was left to his own devices for the next few months. That was just as well, because it gave him ample opportunity to study the humans to whom emotions seemed to come easily.

After acquiring temporary employment at a local fusion cuisine restaurant, he checked out of his temporary lodgings and went "halvsies" on an apartment in the Oakland neighborhood with someone who had needed a short-term roommate because their normal roommate had gone off planet for a while.

Time swiftly passed, and all too soon, it was time to start at the Academy, and very soon after that it seemed, his first semester was over...

Sybok kept his smile toned down when he realized that he had been the first to complete the Final for that semester. He had been on Earth for several months about half of which had been spent attending the Starfleet Academy and - with the removal of the last bit of distortion from the recording he was supposed to clean up - he had finished his first semester as a Communications major. His smile at his success would have been wider, but - despite the fact that humans did it all the time - his classmates seemed to find the idea of a smiling Vulcan to be disturbing which meant that he'd had to tone down his emotional displays a bit until they became inured to them.

When he had exited the Communications lab, it was raining as it was wont to do during the autumn and winter months in this region. Rain was one of the things that had taken a while for him to get used to, as well as the cold, the strange looking moon, and the abundant flora and fauna. Speaking of fauna, being woken up by a raccoon raiding the planter box outside his apartment at three in the morning back before he'd started at the Academy had been quite the novel experience. One that likely would not be repeated in the near future since the Academy had long since figured out how to repel raccoons and other such wildlife from its borders.

Over the semester since he'd started attending the Academy, he had gained a number of friends, and learned a great deal about Earth culture through experience. Having been around humans - as in more than one at a time - he could now see why his father had found Amanda so fascinating. His human roommate who had fortunately been raised in a desert environment - therefore finding no problem with the temperature he'd set their quarters to as he himself found San Francisco to be unbearably cold - had a wealth of fascinating anecdotes to share with him, which he often did.

There would be no stories this evening however, as his roommate would be leaving to visit his family over the academic break.

Deciding that indulging in a leisure activity would be appropriate at this point as he had no other studies or responsibilities to tend to, he headed back to his quarters to watch the humorous and somewhat irreverent historical documentary on the capitol city of the United Federation of Planets. As he turned on San Francisco: The City That Ate the Bay Area, he mused that little Spock would have loved this. It was a pity that he'd more than likely never see any of it though, considering the fact that his half-brother was being raised to be the good son, the son he'd failed to be.


End file.
